Women’s rights typically refers to freedoms granted to women and girls by law or custom in a particular society. These liberties are grouped together and differentiated from broader notions of human rights because they often differ from the freedoms granted to men and boys. These differences are at least partially socially constructed rather than biologically immutable conditions.

Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to:

• rights to bodily integrity and autonomy
• the right to vote
• the right to hold public office
• the right to work
• the right to fair wages
• the right to own property
• the right to education
• marital rights
• parental rights
• religious rights
• the right to serve in the military
• the right to enter into legal contracts

Connections to feminism

Notions of women’s rights are closely connected to feminism. Feminist movements usually call for greater acknowledgment of women’s rights but may also connote a focus on philosophy and theory not necessarily associated with more utilitarian women’s right movements directed at specific reforms.

Notable women’s rights activists

• Qasim Amin (1863-1908) - Egyptian jurist, early advocate of women’s rights in Islamic society
• Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) - American civil rights leader and suffragette, co-founder of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, tried for casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election
• Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922) - Puerto Rican labor union suffragette; jailed for wearing pants in public
• Unity Dow (born 1959) - Botswanan judge and writer, plaintiff in a case that allowed children of Botswanan women and foreign nationals to be considered Batswana
• Carolyn Egan (birthdate unknown) - Canadian-American trade unionist and feminist, advocate for women’s reproductive rights, including access to birth control, abortion, and sex education
• Nawal el-Saadawi (born 1931) - Egyptian writer and doctor, advocate for women’s health and equality
• Marianne Hainisch (1839-1936) - Austrian activist, proponent of women’s right to work and to receive education
• Sor Juana (c. 1651-1695) - Mexican nun, scholar, and proponent of women’s education
• Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879-1904) - Javanese advocate for native Indonesian women, critic of polygamous marriages and lack of education opportunities for women
• Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan (1905-1990) - Indian-Pakistani activist, founder of the All Pakistan Women’s Association, organizer of women’s nursing and first aid corps to help refugees in Delhi despite public resistance to women working outside the home
• Jyotiba Phule (1827-1890) - Indian social reformer, critic of the caste system, founded a school for girls, a widow-remarriage initiative, a home for upper caste widows, and a home for infant girls to discourage female infanticide
• Dora Russell (1894-1986) - British progressive campaigner, advocate of marriage reform, birth control and female emancipation
• Hoda Shaarawi (1879-1947) - Egyptian feminist, organizer for the Mubarrat Muhammad Ali (women’s social service organization), the Union of Educated Egyption Women and the Wafdist Women’s Central Committee, founder and first president of the Egyptian Feminist Union
• Shamima Shaikh (1960-1998) - South African activist, member of the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa, proponent of Islamic gender equality
• Kate Sheppard (1847-1934) - New Zealand suffragette, influential in winning voting rights for women in 1893 (the first national election in which women were allowed to vote)
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) - American social activist, abolitionist, and suffragette, organizer of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention, co-founder of the National Woman's Suffrage Association and the International Council of Women
• Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) - American civil rights and anti-lynching activist, suffragette noted for her refusal to avoid media attention because she was African American
• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) - author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, advocate of women’s equality and rationality

See also

• Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
• Feminism - the core ideology behind women's rights
• International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW)
• Legal rights of women in history
• Reproductive rights - within "women's rights", issues regarding "reproductive freedom"
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• List of democracy and elections-related topics
• suffragette
• League of Women Voters
• National Woman's Suffrage Association
• Seneca Falls Convention, Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments
• The New Northwest
• Women in the Victorian Era
• Women in Sikhism
• Women's political rights in Bahrain
• Section Twenty-eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Women's suffrage in South Carolina
• Women's suffrage

External links

• Roe Depot ~ a forum on reproductive rights & alternative birth control
• Ansar Burney Trust working for women's rights in the Middle East
• Human Rights Watch: Women's Rights
• Women in the (Christian) Church essay arguing against ordination of women in the Christian church

Women's rights